


Field Trip

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Shopping, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:39:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's in from the cold and on his way to recovery. But getting through the day in Steve's apartment is a little different than going out and doing things as James Barnes among people once threatened by the masters of the Winter Soldier. Clint plays wingman on an errand that's more than an errand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> This is more or less a missing scene from _[Remedial](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1984494)_ , although you can read this without having read that.

Barnes, when he came in from the cold, wasn't some brain-damaged shell of a human being, wasn't some tool wandering around aimlessly looking for his purpose. He wasn't Sergeant James Barnes, either, such as Clint could imagine the man stripped of what heroic legend -- and Steve's glowing memories -- had made him out to be. But he was closer to that than the Winter Soldier, which made things both much easier and much harder for everyone.

Clint had both kept his distance and watched very closely, aware that everyone else was watching him as well because of The Loki Thing, too. None of them save Natasha had known him then, known who he'd been and how being Loki's tool had changed him. They'd taken him as he was, more or less, just as they were now taking Barnes as he was, more or less. Tamed killers, trusted by someone whose judgment they respected. Or maybe not; Clint hadn't been in the frame of mind to be too aware of that kind of stuff when he'd first come back. He'd seen nothing past the blood on his hands.

Barnes sometimes didn't see anything past that, either, but the darkness wasn't stuck to him like tar the way it had felt like for Clint. Maybe it was the time that had passed, maybe it was that the sheer enormity of how incredibly fucked-up the whole Winter Soldier business had been that kept it from penetrating, or maybe it was that Barnes was getting more out of the therapy than Clint had during his mandated sessions. For Barnes, it was more like a cloud overhead throwing shade and could be made to go away, even for a little while. Steve, the sun around which the Avengers revolved -- no matter what Tony might've expected with his bank account funding their lives -- was usually  enough to keep Barnes's darkness at bay. But sometimes he was the one causing the shadows in the first place and that's when Barnes would look for someone else to be around or, failing to find someone, would go off by himself.

"Look, man," Clint had told him after one of those solo adventures had gone wrong. "I know you have our numbers in your phone. If you want a familiar stranger to hang out with, it's just a keypress away. I happen to like wandering around and not talking, just for future reference. So does Natasha. And Bruce. Thor'll talk, but he's fine if you don't. Same with Tony, but good luck going anywhere incognito with him."

Clint hadn't known what exactly had happened, just that Barnes was looking a little shell-shocky and Steve was visibly forcing himself not to hover.

Barnes had nodded and that had been the end of that because there'd been a loud crash from the other end of the room because Tony had been flying tiny robots around inside again despite all of them witnessing, by intent, Pepper's making him promise not to. The expected had happened in consequence and Barnes had slipped away sometime between Tony trying to get JARVIS to rush-order a new batch of drinking glasses and Pepper's PA turning up with papers for Tony to sign and Tony trying to bribe her into silence.

The next day, Barnes was back to normal, or whatever currently passed as such, and he and Steve had had matching expressions as they watched Clint and Tony and Pepper and Hill and Rhodes argue about _Tiny Toon Adventures_ ' place in the cartoon canon. (Minor canon, at least the '90's version. Rhodes was talking out his ass for saying it didn't count.)

Life moved on and Clint hadn't quite forgotten about his offer to Barnes, but he'd given up on Barnes ever taking him -- or anyone else -- up on it. Barnes wasn't anti-social by any means and he didn't cling to Steve like a kid with separation anxiety, but there was a difference between sliding into a conversation or activity that was going on where you coincidentally happened to be and then one you had to initiate on your own and Barnes didn't do the latter yet. Clint didn't do it much, either, to be honest, and he couldn't blame his insane schedule for it, either. He'd lost his taste for being a star of the show before he'd actually left the circus.

All of which he'd have pointed to to explain his surprise when Barnes knocked on his door one morning.

"Hey," Barnes began, hesitant and unsure, which was a crap look on him. "You doing anything later?"

There was a list of things Clint had sort-of planned to do, but nothing he especially wanted to do or that couldn't be put off. "Nah," he replied, opening the door further. "You got somewhere you want to go?"

By now, Clint was aware that Barnes wasn't supposed to be wandering into certain places alone, that there'd been at least one supermarket freak-out and one time Steve had had to go to Duane Reade to pick up a new toothbrush for him because he'd accidentally dropped his in the toilet. Crowds and consumerism were a challenge for everyone coming back home, be it from a deployment or something worse. Clint had never been able to stomach either, even before he started carrying a gun and a quiver for a living, and it had made the idea of permanently basing himself in New York a possible deal-killer when it came to the Avengers, although he'd obviously given in. Thank christ you could order whatever you wanted over the internet these days.

"I need something for the shower to hold my stuff," Barnes explained sourly. "Steve's isn't big enough."

Which might be true, but was just as likely to be a pretext just to go out or to try a store again under more controlled conditions or both. Regardless, Clint agreed and they set a time to meet in the lounge after lunch.

There were closer options, but Clint suggested the Bed Bath & Beyond up by Lincoln Center; it would be marginally less zoo-like inside, but much less crowded outside. They walked up Park Avenue because it had less pedestrian and commercial traffic and then across at 65th Street to use the Central Park transverse there; if Barnes realized that Clint was taking the path less traveled -- or the path least likely to have changed since the last time Barnes wandered around New York back in the '40's -- he didn't say anything. They mostly kept a companionable silence, breaking it only to boggle at a baby stroller that turned out to be a dog stroller with a dolled-up pug inside and to give directions to two separate sets of lost tourists.

The security guard in the store's lobby gave them a once-over, but said nothing as they made their way to the escalators. (Which was just as well because they were both carrying.) The store went down instead of up and Clint made a crack about descending into hell as they rode down to the first level and the noise and the light and especially the smell rose up to meet them.

"These places all reek," Clint warned. "It's air freshener or candles or whatever. I don't get it -- the idea is to make people want to stay longer and buy more, not get whatever they can in the time it takes to hold their breath."

"You could hide a body in here for months and nobody would smell it," Barnes said as they stepped off the escalator. Clint looked back at him. "Too soon?"

Clint cracked up. "Nah, not if you're the one making the joke," he answered, starting to walk. "Come on. Whichever direction we're supposed to be going, what we need is in the opposite one."

Barnes paused, long enough for Clint to realize that his crack had been out of nervousness rather than straight humor. He knew Barnes wasn't good in stores alone, but he didn't know if Barnes-plus-one just needed a moment or if this was him pushing himself too far outside of Steve's watchful eye if not out of Steve's agreed-to rules. So he stopped walking and paused himself, looking around for a floor plan because this would be easier if they didn't have to wander through a couple of levels if Barnes really wasn't up to it. Because they weren't going to leave here without at least looking at a shower caddy -- Barnes would fight him if he suggested they turn around and try someplace else -- and minimizing the pain might be necessary. There was one and he skimmed it over, waiting for Barnes to realize where he was and join him.

"Last time I was in one of these places, I ended up buying an Oscar the Grouch soap dispenser," Clint said, apropos of nothing once Barnes did. "You see _Sesame Street_ yet?"

Barnes's reaction -- a shake of his head 'no' -- was only a heartbeat delayed, so Clint pretended he hadn't noticed it while privately sighing with relief.

"We'll have to fix that pronto," he went on. "You'll even learn to count and shit."

"I already know how to do both," Barnes replied with half a smirk and Clint rolled his eyes.

"Come on," he exhorted, starting to walk again. "I'm getting a contact high from the potpourri."

Shower caddies were, of course, on the second level down and far from the escalator. Clint made a beeline for them, figuring they'd power through the rest of Barnes's issues on the way there, take it easy while looking over the goods, and then let Barnes set the pace after that. They got to the shower accessory section without too much difficulty -- Barnes put his head down and followed Clint, who had decades of espionage tradecraft layered over a misspent youth in carnival arcades and could slither through crowds like a fish. Barnes could follow him easily, but he didn't bother to hide his exhale of relief when they got where they were going. A sigh that quickly became a whistle of shock once he saw just how many options there were.

"I just wanted something so I didn't have to fish my razor out from under Steve's every morning," Barnes said in a voice full of something that might be regret or surrender.

"So we'll stick to the small ones," Clint replied, gesturing toward the smaller contraptions and away from the ones with tiers and poles and detachable accessories. "Most of these are for folks who use more stuff than you and Steve or for families."

Barnes and Rogers had exactly the amount of stuff in their shower that you'd expect two guys from seventy years ago to have in their shower. They had old-timey safety razors and soap cups with lathering brushes and bars of regular soap and two bottles of shampoo-plus-conditioner because Barnes had decided he didn't like the smell of whatever Steve was using. (Steve had been charmingly proud of Barnes telling him he smelled like a French fart.) Barnes could get the smallest one they could find and it would be fine.

They had a brief debate over whether to get something that could be stuck on with suction cups or needed glue or got screwed into the walls -- Clint assured him that JARVIS didn't care if there were extra holes in the walls and that Tony had no space to talk there -- before picking out a simple and straightforward shelf caddy that had both glue and screw options.

"Anything else you want while we're here?" Clint asked once the decision had been made. "If you're not gonna faint from the smell, we can browse."

What happened next would be up to Barnes; if he wanted to get out of here, they could, if he wanted to test himself, Clint would roll with it. Barnes still had an edge to him that he didn't have at the Tower, but he didn't look as pole-axed as he had by the escalator, either, so there was that.

"We can look around," Barnes said and Clint heard the challenge in it, but it was self-directed. "Steve's always trying to get me to make it look like I live there, too. He doesn't count leaving my socks on the living room floor."

They wandered around looking at various items -- throw pillows, curtains, towels, all things that were already in the Barnes/Rogers apartment. Clint thought they were all kind of hideously colored and printed but when he said so, Barnes just shrugged. "This stuff was ugly back then, too. The movies were just in black and white and nobody realizes it now."

Barnes made the motions of picking things up, but, really, he was more interested in watching the people than looking at the things and Clint didn't know if Barnes was curious or envious or revolted or all of the above, if he had spent much time at all seeing how 'normal' people acted in this time and whether he felt the loss. The kids, at least, Barnes watched with something close to longing, at least until they started screaming. But he definitely smiled at a baby that came into his personal space, swung around in a backpack carrier to be eye level.

"Hey, kiddo," he said softly to the baby, who smiled back before disappearing into the realm of comforters and bed-inna-bags.

They got on line with nothing else but the shower caddy, although Clint tried to get Barnes to buy the zebra toothpaste clip (no dice). And once they were done, they got back outside and both breathed heavily of the humid, exhaust-filled New York City air because at least it didn't smell like oleander.

The walk back to the Tower was as uneventful as the walk up and Clint parted ways with Barnes on the elevator up. He didn't know where Steve was or if he was even around, but two days later, he ran into him and got a quiet thanks, which he returned with a nod.

Two weeks -- and one HYDRA assault -- later, Barnes texted him. "So, Ikea?"

**Author's Note:**

> I spend a lot of time on [Tumblr](http://laporcupina.tumblr.com/) now, if you're into that sort of thing.


End file.
